


Of TARDISes and Time Lords

by scuttlesworth



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, TARDIS - Freeform, doctor who - Freeform, dr who, i had an idea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 04:26:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1065746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scuttlesworth/pseuds/scuttlesworth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of course they're alive. Didn't you see it? Donna's eyes, when she was the Doctor Donna; Rose's eyes, when she was the Bad Wolf. The same thing, only different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of TARDISes and Time Lords

"It's what he didn't understand," the Doctor says to Rory, looking at the console and touching the metal whosiwhatsit gently. Amy has walked back to get a sweater, and Rory is left standing behind for just a moment. He glances up, pulled from his contemplation of their most recent near-dissolution experience.

 "What?" he replies, nervous. Every seemingly simple conversation with the Doctor is quicksand, he thinks gloomily.

 "The TARDIS. He didn't understand her."

 "Well, that's evident from the fact that she killed him," Rory says. He's frequently bemused by the Doctor, but this looks like solid ground. That was a bit obvious, after all.

 The Doctor laughs, and Rory is just as suddenly back in the quicksand. There's something he missed. There's always something he missed. Amy is the only solid thing in the whole damn universe, always has been, always will be. Amy and nursing. There's no difference between being in the middle of England and the middle of the stars, on that score. "What?" he asks, resigned to the fate of not knowing quite what's going on.

"He didn't understand the Time Lords either. He killed them, and he ate the TARDISES. I wonder if she told him the truth before she wiped him out? Maybe. We were very, very angry."

"The truth?" Rory is always uneasy, but this feels more uneasy than normal.

The Doctor glances up, eyes bright, a bit of hair flopping over his forehead. "Well, we're the same thing, the TARDIS and I, aren't we?" He pats her gently on the metal bit again and bursts into motion, twisting and dancing, feet shuffling across her deck as his long fingers tickle the keyboards and poke at the buttons, and Rory is suddenly embarrassed to be watching, flushing red. He doesn't know why. The TARDIS whoops and groans, moving again. Somewhen else.

 "What?" he answers stupidly, staring off at a side pannel so he can just see the Doctor out of the corner of his eye, moving. That grin.

 "She and I, both the same at heart," the Doctor replies. "Oh, well. Hearts. Inside the shell. Under the skin. Rose found out. Rose was a bit TARDIS too, at the end. It's why we couldn't help but... Well - partly why. TARDISes and Time Lords," he says, whirling over and grabbing Rory on the shoulders so fast and so close, eyes flicking between Rory's eyes, nose nearly touching Rory's nose. No sense of personal space. "TARDISes and Time Lords. Energy, Rory! We're all energy!"

 Rory is scraping the bottom of his mind rather desperately. Biology is his subject, always has been. Physics, not so much. "Ah. Um, Everything's energy?" he says, and the missing eyebrows (which are always so strangely present, despite their absence) draw together in a scowl. He's got it wrong. Then they flick back and he's got it right? Or wrong, or both -

 "Ah, Rory, Rory, Rory," the Doctor says, one arm around his shoulder. "Cutting straight to the chase. Yes, everything's energy. Even you and Amy. But energies have flavors. And Time Lords and TARDISes are the same flavor of energy." The Doctor shoots one of those under-glances at Rory, a sideways flick of his eyes. Rory twigs, then.

 "Time Lords... *are* TARDISes," he says, slowly, testing the idea out. The Doctor grins, just a little. "And TARDISes are Time Lords? So when that thing, that planet - "

 The Doctor sniffs in contempt. "Planetoid, at best," he interrupts dismissively.

 "That planetoid, then," Rory waves a hand "when it killed the Time Lords instead of eating them..."

 The Doctor grins at Rory getting the joke, and despite the horror - or because of it - Rory starts laughing helplessly. A moment later, the Doctor starts chuckling too.

 Amy chooses that moment to walk in, wearing a large red fuzzy sweater. She glances between them and scowls. "What are you two loons howling about now?" she barks out. Rory can't help but laugh even harder. The Doctor shakes his head and lies a finger alongside his nose, and Amy glares at them both, and Rory laughs at the misery of the silly planetoid when it learned what it wasted. Laughs at the deaths of dozens - hundreds - of Time Lords and their magical boxes, which are just Time Lords in a different shape. And he would forever swear forever that in that moment, the sound of the TARDIS moving through time and space and other things was a laugh too - and not a nice laugh at all.

***

Later, lying rather squashed in the top bunk bed next to Amy, he thinks of energy and physical form and tragedy, and the Doctor living his whole life with a person who can never speak to him, separated their entire existence by their molecules being in the wrong shape. He thinks of the TARDIS kidnapping a young man away and living together, seeing the universe, but never saying a single word until today. And he sticks his nose in sleeping Amy's hair and inhales, and whispers to her all the things that lovers whisper in the dead of night, just because he can.


End file.
